Topic: Other

Creating Needs Vs. Satisfying Needs

Posted by Anonymous on 6/21/2007 at 8:21 PM ET25 Points

what does marketing do? to create needs or to satisfy needs?can you help me in our debate???plz....i dont know if im the side of creating needs or satisfying needs because we (me and my groupmates) will be a on the spot debate, so i need an information on both sides..please haelp me...thank... (^_^)

Marketing either succeeds or fails to convince the target audience that their product will satisfy one of those categories of needs.

Marketing is not about creating or satisfying the needs of the consumer... it is about ensuring the survival and long term success of the institution for which it works by prompting short and long term cash flow.

BARQ, makes a good point. Base needs have not changed over the years. We want to survive, eat, procreate, socialize, be entertained and so on. These desires do not change, but how we achieve them does. Good marketing and PR taps into the basics and shows a new or better way to achieve it.

Posted
on 6/22/2007 at 9:13 AMAccepted

Needs are not created by a company showing that you have a product which you might need in the future. But it does occurs in certain situations. When people are in a dilemma whether they might have a need or not, then it is the marketer who makes such a dilemma into a need. Sony has created things this way. We go to a sony showroom with a need for a colour tv, but the marketer convinces you to go in for a HD TV and finally u become a slave for the product and u bring home that pdt. Now was there a need for the HDTV, but the need is created by the marketer. This is one view, but many people say that it is mere high satisfaction u attain instead of this situation becoming a need. Now it is upto u to decide whether the marketing creates a need or jus satisfies your needs.

If a marketer can create a need in the minds of a Sadhus or Yogis in India, then i will accept that marketer really creates a need instead of nearly satisfyin them. In reality , marketer thrives to satisfy the demands of the customers so as to create a higher level of need so that he innovates and stays in the market for longer period of time. Ford has just done that.First it was MODEL T, then MUSTANG, and now FIESTA..Are these categorised under wants or needs...?

You can stay on any side of the debate to win the debate, as there is nothing set boundaries in marketing. You can even discover and push the boundaries of marketing.

The first role of marketing is to understand what the marketplace thinks it needs, the price they are prepared to pay, in the place where they want to buy it. (Product, Price, Place)

Then a product can be developed that exactly fits that need.

Marketing is then re-involved managing the perceptions of the market (Promotion) to do what it can to persuade the target segments the company's product exactly fills the needs they thought they had... To the best extent possible...

There will always be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make it superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to maker the product or service available.

So i think conclude, that marketing is all about to understand the needs so well that it sells fast and fulfills needs of the customers.